


Perfect World

by foxysquid



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, sad stories about dead fathers, world peace is a bad idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxysquid/pseuds/foxysquid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first snowfall of the year, and Kerry's learning how to use a gun. Most kids would want to play in the snow, but Kerry's not most kids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect World

"Here, kid." Natalia plopped down a bag on the table in front of him, and Kerry looked up from the gun he'd been disassembling and reassembling. After a brief hesitation, he reached out and unrolled the brown paper. The tantalizing, warm smell of bread and meat was already rising from the bag, and he wasn't surprised when he opened it and pulled out a hamburger and french fries. He stared at the food for a moment, as if not quite sure what it was.

"Eat," said Natalia, with a sigh.

As if he had been waiting for this command, Kerry picked up the burger and bit into it, his eyes widening and his expression brightening. He had thought, at first, that food would have no more taste for him, but it was still good. It was very good.

"That's better." Natalia's lips moved into a grim little smile. "You look like you've got some life in you."

Kerry nodded and continued to eat, tearing off chunks of the hamburger with his teeth. He felt ravenous now, realizing that he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. He'd kept repeating the task Natalia had given him, over and over, until the actions were almost mechanical. The gun, cleaned between assemblages, was now as immaculate as it was possible for any firearm to be, and Kerry felt he knew it as well as he knew his own hand. Even better, for he knew it both inside and out.

Natalia laughed. "Have you been at that all day? Don't give up, do you?"

Kerry swallowed his current mouthful, the burger all but obliterated. "That's right, I don't."

Natalia picked up the gun, which was currently whole, Kerry having just finished putting it back together. "Not bad." Kerry beamed at the praise. He was already coming to look for her sparing compliments. Even though he followed her orders diligently, she was stinting with her appreciation. After a pause, studying his face, Natalia added, "It's the same one, you know."

Kerry froze. His face fell, and he looked to the gun in Natalia's hand. On some level, he'd known. The weight and the feel had been the same. He remembered keenly what it had been like to hold the weapon in his hand, to tighten his finger on the trigger. The report, the recoil. The way he'd stumbled back and his father had stumbled forward. How could he ever forget? Yet some part of him hadn't been willing to believe he'd been holding the same gun. He'd failed to make the connection out of a willful kind of self-preservation, but faced with Natalia's statement, he couldn't ignore the truth any longer.

Natalia put her hand out, returning the gun to him. Kerry let it hang there, at first, watching the weapon as if it had become foreign to him once again. The gun that had killed his father. He could reject it, but what would be the point in doing that? What he had done couldn't be changed. It would always be what he'd done. He reached out and took the gun, claiming it, along with his action. He tried not to be sad, but he felt a pang of guilt and a heaviness in his stomach as the smooth metal slid into his hand. He set it down on the table beside him. It was his.

"Good," said Natalia.

Kerry hardly noticed the praise this time. As he'd been instructed to eat, and he felt he should eat, he pressed the last of the hamburger into his mouth and began to chew, mechanically. The food didn't taste the same. It had lost some of its flavor.

"How about I give you the rest of the day off?" Natalia asked.

Kerry nodded, but without much enthusiasm. He was still conscious of the gun beside him, remembering his father's arms coming around him, the worry and relief in his voice as he'd welcomed him back to the house. His father hadn't hugged him often, but he had then. He'd hugged him tight, that one last time. There'd been a tension in his broad shoulders, sweat standing on his forehead. He'd been afraid, for Kerry's sake. If things had gone differently, they would be together right now, maybe on some other island. His father would be in his workshop, leaning over his desk, wearing that serious expression he wore when he was working, his brow furrowed, but he'd look up and it would fade into one of his small smiles--

"Come on." Natalia's voice cut into his thoughts. Kerry noticed he'd started eating his french fries without realizing it. "I've got something to show you."

"What is it?"

"You've been sitting in front of that table all day, I bet you haven't looked outside."

It was true. He hadn't. He'd attended to his work with an intensity he once hadn't known he'd possessed. He wondered if he wore the same expression on his face as his father had, in his workshop, but he quickly banished the thought. He rose to his feet as Natalia moved to pull open the curtains.

Kerry stared. It was snowing. It had been such a long time since he'd seen snow. There hadn't been any snow in Alimango Island or the places they'd lived before then. He could only dimly remember the last time he'd witnessed it falling. He couldn't even remember where he'd been at the time. He'd run out beneath the giant flakes with his head upturned and his mouth open, to catch them on his tongue. They'd stuck to his mittens and gotten caught in his hair. His father had been with him then, too, standing with his hands in his pockets and following after him, not quite playing, but looking after him, making sure he was all right. When he'd fallen down, tumbling into a snowbank, his father had picked him up.

It was winter already. Time kept passing.

"Want to go out? Kids like to play in the snow, right?"

He didn't turn toward Natalia as she spoke. He watched the snow falling, covering the hard, dead ground, blanketing it in white. It made the landscape beautiful. Where it had been bleak and gray before, now everything was pale and cold, pristine and perfectly calm. It looked like a world in which nothing bad could happen.

_A world in which nothing bad could happen._

Wouldn't that be a wonderful place?

He did want to go out and play. It would be fun. To run in the snow and taste snowflakes and make snowballs and throw them. The problem was, who would he play with? None of his friends were here. There was nobody left. He didn't want to hurry out into the cold whiteness and hear ghosts racing beside him. He didn't want to see a vision of Shirley in a winter coat and wonder how she would react to seeing snow in person for the first time. Would she wrinkle her nose and laugh as the flakes struck her face and melted against her skin? She would, wouldn't she? It wasn't fair that he was here to see the snow and she wasn't. He didn't want the sound of her laughter to echo in his ears.

Kerry nodded. "Kids do," he said. Without glancing at Natalia, he turned away from the window and went back to the table. As he sat down before the gun, he kept a vision of that cold white landscape in his mind. _A perfect world._

He picked up the weapon and began to take it apart.


End file.
